Since it's award season, I'll be giving out my own awards, but specifically to super hero films (as oppose to comic book films with would have included Kingsman: The Golden Circle, Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets, etc.).

And the Prime Award goes to:
Dafne Keen as Laura/X-23 in Logan. Keen was instrumental in the success of Logan as much of the heart and tears comes from her performance. Moreover, her action sequence as the Logan ranch/compound outshine most of, if not, all of Hugh Jackman's action pieces. Moreover, Keen did an excellent job in taking the baton from Logan that people want to see her as Wolverine.

And the Prime Award goes to:
Patrick Stewart as Charles Xavier is Logan. To see the state that Charles Xavier is in during Logan is heartbreaking. Stewart gives an Oscar worthy performance in this film as he goes through different states of being and a wide arrange of emotions. This wasn't much of a contest.

Best Leading Actress in a Super Hero Movie, the nominees are:
- Gal Gadot as Diana Prince in Wonder Woman
- Gal Gadot as Wonder Woman in Justice League
- Zoe Saldana as Gamora in Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2

And the Prime Award goes to:
Gal Gadot as Diana Prince in Wonder Woman. This is pretty much by default unless I changed some of the supporting actresses to lead actresses.

Best Leading Actor in a Super Hero Movie, the nominees are:
- Chris Hemsworth as Thor in Thor: Ragnarok
- Hugh Jackman as James Howlett/Logan in Logan
- Tom Holland as Peter Parker in Spider-Man: Homecoming
- Chris Pratt as Peter Quill/Starlord in Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2
- Ben Affleck as Bruce Wayne/Batman in Justice League

And the Prime Award goes to:
Hugh Jackman as Logan in Logan as it's also worthy of an Oscar nomination and arguably Jackman's best performance onscreen.

Best Director for a Super Hero movie, the nominees are:
- Patty Jenkins for Wonder Woman
- James Mangold for Logan
- Taika Waititi for Thor: Ragnarok
- James Gunn for Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2
- Jon Watts for Spider-Man: Homecoming

And the Prime Award goes to:
Taika Waitit for Thor: Ragnarok. I think Waititi had a higher level of difficulty than James Mangold with Logan in balancing the amount of characters and comedy so it didn't fall into campiness. Moreover, he made a more cohesive film that Patty Jenkins. I love the use of music in this film and the color pallet used.

Thor: Ragnarok. I had such a great experience with this film. I left the theater with smiles and satisfaction. Logan was a bit too dour for me and I've seen a sad Logan in every one of his stand alone films. Additionally, the thought the film drags in that farm house scene. Wonder Woman had problems with its CGI and third act, but I love the film.

It would be amazing to see Patrick Stewart get a Best Supporting Actor Oscar nomination. It's exactly the kind of performance that could really raise the profile of comic book films. Absolutely worthy a nomination for sure.

Starz announced Friday at the Television Critics Association's winter press tour that it was developing The Continental, an ongoing drama series based on the John Wick film franchise starring Keanu Reeves. Reeves, Starz execs said, is expected to make an appearance in the potential series but will not star.

The potential TV series is set in the John Wick universe and focuses on the inner workings of the exclusive Continental Hotel, which serves as a refuge for assassins.

Chris Collins (Sons of Anarchy, The Wire, Man in the High Castle) will pen the script and serve as showrunner should the drama move forward. The original film's creative team is on board for the TV offshoot, with Thunder Road Pictures' Basil Iwanyk — who produced the first two features and serves in the same capacity on the forthcoming third — leads an exec producing team that also includes Chad Stahelski (who directed the first two and is returning for the third), original franchise screenwriter Derek Kolstad, Collins, David Leitch (who co-directed the original) and Reeves. Stahelski will direct the premiere of The Continental, should the script move forward.

...

The Continental arrives as reboots and spinoffs remain in high demand while broadcast, cable and streaming platforms continue to look for proven franchises in a bid to cut through a cluttered landscape that is expected to top 520 original scripted series in 2018. Key to the reboots is having the original producers involved, which The Continental has with Lionsgate and the John Wick's original producing team.

The project arrives as Starz continues to ramp up its scripted offerings from Lionsgate after the company was sold last year. Starz went to series on Lionsgate-produced Vida and Stephenie Meyer's The Rook. Those join a roster of scripted originals that includes American Gods, Ash vs. Evil Dead, The Missing, Outlander, Power, Counterpart, Howard's End and Sweetbitter.

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"The Continental" hotel one of the things that made the origin John Wick so good and distinguish itself from other action films, as it create its own mythology. "The Continental" much like the island in "LOST" is a character onto itself.

Yeah, Armie Hammer & Cillian Murphy were also in serious contention for inclusion on the list. It's just . . . I mean, what an ensemble.

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Free Fire shocked me with how good it was. It was my "decided to to see it on a whim, was absolutely blown away" film of 2017. I love how...reluctant the shootout was. Everything was halfhearted, and everyone was just shooting at each other like it was a casual argument of a fight, not a fast-paced fight-to-the-death. Chatting a lot, arguing and insulting one another in the background. It was so oddly delightful!

OK, so here is my final list of 2016 films; again, this is the list of the best 2016 films that I didn't catch up to until 2017. Next, I'll start on the actual 2017 films I saw in 2017. Interestingly (to me, at least), there are three movies in my top ten that didn't show up on either my Female Performances or Male Performances list. Sometimes, it's about more than the acting apparently.
2016 – Top 10 Films

20th Century Women

A nostalgic coming of age story is nothing new, but this one is superlative, populated with an amazing cast & boasting a great script.

Colossal

Colossal is a genre-collision of surprising depth, a whimsical, darkly comic fantasy tale that turns into a dark character study and a bleak exploration of violence and cruelty.

I Am Not Your Negro

This ground-breaking documentary uses author James Baldwin as a lens to examine the Black experience in America and the insights are bracing, compelling and of the moment.

Paterson

Adam Driver’s character is a poet-bus driver with a meticulously ordered life in this wry, witty, profound character study.

Personal Shopper

As a brilliant Kristen Stewart moves through the world of high fashion, this film movingly explores grief & isolation, but also doesn’t skimp on the ghost story frights and thrills.

Raw

As intense, punishing and harrowing a horror film as I’ve seen in years, this gruesome tale of a young woman coping with violent desires is an audacious debut with an astounding great lead performance.

Silence

Scorsese’s passion project about missionaries in 16th-century Japan is a thought-provoking, troubling, immersive meditation on faith, doubt, suffering and the state of the soul

Toni Erdmann

A riotous farce, a heart-tugging drama and a beautiful character study of a father & daughter struggling to relate, Toni Erdmann is challenging, constantly surprising and a masterpiece.

The Wedding Plan

An Orthodox Jewish woman prays for God to provide her a husband in this masterful film that is both hilariously funny and surprisingly thoughtful in its exploration of faith and love.

Your Name

Magical, beautifully animated anime starts as a body-switch comedy and then morphs into a bittersweet film about love, loss, fate and that nagging feeling that there’s something more.

Anyway, that's not a list of the top ten of everything that came out in 2016; some of those would probably still be on that list, but this list is specifically for movies released in 2016 that I was able to see in 2017.

Wow, that is interesting. The party scene is the hardest I've laughed at a movie in years. I mean, Hunt for the Wilderpeople is right up there, but the party scene in Toni Erdmann was just really hard, really sustained laughter for like the entire sequence. Like weeping, pounding the armrest laughter. Wilderpeople was a lot of consistently big laughs; Toni Erdmann was a really good drama/cringe comedy that climaxed in one of the longest, hardest laughs I've ever had at a movie. I laughed more at Wilderpeople, but harder at Erdmann. The bit when the guy is standing there and doesn't realize that the father is behind him in that ridiculous costume and you're just waiting for the moment; I was crying with laughter before he saw the father. Really landed in my sweet spot somehow. Comedy is such a weirdly specific thing.

Just trying to think back over my life in comedy films, I think I would say there were only two other scenes that come to mind in terms of getting that kind of sustained reaction from me: the mirror scene in Duck Soup and the laxative scene in Dumb & Dumber. Stupidity, poop, nudity. I am truly a child. Definitely something about social taboos gets to me, judging from that list, though the mirror scene is at least totally innocent.

Okay, after this post, I only have two left and my annual "year in review" derail of this thread will be over. In this post, I'll be giving you the top ten female performances of 2017, ie. movies released in 2017 that I have currently seen and then five honorable mentions. I haven't caught up with everything yet, of course; I, Tonya is probably the one I'm cognizant of not catching in 2017 in terms of the great female performances of the year.

I'm proud of the breadth of this list. The youngest actress in the top ten is sixteen; the oldest is sixty. I've loved some of these actresses for years; but there was one case here where I actually had to go look up the performer's name. One actress on this list has been in sixty-three movies; another is making her film debut. The most represented movie got one performance in the top ten and two more in the honorable mentions; might be one you wouldn't necessarily think of in terms of its great female performances. I really enjoyed making this list and I hope it inspires you to check out some of these if you haven't seen them.

TOP TEN

Talitha Bateman – Annabelle: Creation

As a young girl suffering from polio and a demonic haunting, Bateman continues the Conjuring franchise’s run of stellar lead female performances.

Gal Gadot – Wonder Woman

Instantly an icon of cool & beauty, Gadot’s Wonder Woman also revealed a human side with a range of emotions, all while handily putting any fears about a female driven superhero film to rest forever.

Sally Hawkins – The Shape of Water

In a performance driven completely by her nuanced, evocative facial expression and body language, Hawkins still comes across as very natural.

Salma Hayek – Beatriz at Dinner

As an impoverished woman trapped at a dinner party with the upper crust, Hayek hits every beat perfectly, from light comedy to burning indignation to a bone-deep sorrow.

Sylvia Hoeks – Blade Runner 2049

As the implacable replicant Luv, Hoeks turned in one of the best villainous performances of the year, finding a surprising vein of repressed emotions and turmoil inside the character.

Frances McDormand – Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri

The legend gives a performance no one else could have as a vengeance-seeking, grief-stricken, foul-mouthed mother, showing us a woman at her most pitiable and her most monstrous.

Haley Lu Richardson – Columbus

Richardson breaks out big with this star-making indie performance that is minimal, stark and deeply, deeply felt.

Saoirse Ronan – Lady Bird

Ronan is career best as she disappears completely into her part as a disaffected girl struggling through her senior year in high school

Jessica Rothe – Happy Death Day

Rothe nails everything from incredibly broad comedy to extreme terror to ultimate badass all while remaining likable and commanding the screen with incredible charisma.

Bria Vinaite – The Florida Project

Vinaite is a ferocious, compelling force of nature in her film debut as a struggling single mother.

HONORABLE MENTIONS

Ana de Armas – Blade Runner 2049

De Armas gives a wonderful performance as a computer simulation that slowly awakens to a world of human emotions.

Betty Gabriel – Get Out

Even in Get Out’s great ensemble, Gabriel stands out with an intensely creepy performance as a maid with a dark secret.

Michelle Pfeiffer – mother!

Pfeiffer roars back with a vengeance in this passive-aggressive monster of a role and she’s never been as wicked or as funny.

Katherine Waterston – Alien: Covenant

In a franchise ruled by strong women, Waterston wasn’t afraid to show her vulnerability, sorrow and terror and her performance does a lot toward grounding this heady sci-fi film.

Robin Wright – Blade Runner 2049

Wright turned in two stellar supporting film performances in 2017 and her turn as a hard-nosed police officer in Blade Runner 2049 was the most memorable.

That's very underwhelming "Tomb Raider" trailer. It's doesn't make me want to see in a theater, but rather wait until it comes on Netflix or something. It looks like another video game flick that fail at the box office.

Yeah, not a lot of big wow moments in that Tomb Raider trailer; makes the story look very uninteresting and cliched. Will I see it in theaters? Who can say? I mean, a sweaty, disheveled Alicia Vikander in a tank top has a not insubstantial amount of power over me.